September beginnings

I just returned from a brisk walk to and around the University of Washington campus, one final limbering up exercise before heading off on my Himalaya trek. While I'm now getting ready for a Tuesday departure, the university is gearing up for tomorrow's first day of classes.

It's a perfect day for a new quarter to begin. The air is cool, the sky is blue, the sun is warm. The campus was a sea of freshmen, most of them dressed in brand new t-shirts or sweat shirts, all in Husky purple -- their school pride obviously unaffected by their football team's drubbing (yes, I said drubbing) last night at the hands of my own alma mater.

The campus is also awash in their proud parents.

The parents are a relatively new wrinkle. As I walked onto the campus from Montlake, I encountered a giant tent filled with kids and their parents seated at tables chattering and eating. Signs announced this to be the President's Picnic, a meal designed to make everyone feel welcome and to let the parents experience being a part of their offspring's expensive education. (See photo above for a similar scene at Stanford -- this year's freshmen accompanied by their parents at "Freshman Convocation.")

I say it's a new wrinkle, because when I was a freshman, I don't recall parents hanging around the campus. They certainly didn't join us at freshman convocation. Those of us from out of state arrived on our own. Freshman living within driving distance of campus were often brought to the school by their parents, but after the old folks had served their primary function of helping carry stuff into the dorm, and after they spent a few minutes looking around and perhaps meeting their son or daughter's scary new roommate, there were awkward hugs, a quick goodby -- and they were gone, probably not to be seen again until at least Thanksgiving.

The university's effort to bring parents, students, and school together in a communal feast is simply an acknowledgement of certain changes in our society. Cell phones, Facebook and emails keep the generations in touch now on virtually a daily basis. Such close communication would have been considered bizarre, a sign of arrested development, when I was in college. I did know of kids who phoned home weekly, but contact of even that frequency certainly wasn't the norm.

As do many school officials, I have my worries that such continued close involvement by parents in the lives of their children may result in a "failure to launch," a delay in the student's ability to stand on his own feet -- intellectually as well as socially and financially. But this concern is probably just another one of those many worries that aren't worth worrying about. "Nothing endures but change," as Heraclitus reminds us. Change in itself is neither good nor bad -- just different. And my memories may be as accurate as my own parents' memories of walking to school barefoot through 12 foot snow drifts.

The kids on the U-Dub campus looked happy and excited. As did their folks. It almost made me wish I were 18 again. But when I shake off the deceptive glow of nostalgia and carefully remember everything about how it felt to be a freshman -- nah, I don't think so.

Being a college freshman is, I suppose, like sky diving -- it's something that's great to do once in your lifetime.